Where dreams can't reach
by SoulHook
Summary: A simple one-shot with a rather tragic story I simply HAD to get rid off my chest. No clopfiction, I swear..


NOTE: For all of you who know me, allow me to tell ya all this is NOT a clopfiction and NOT related to my other stories, it's a one-shot about something completely different... enjoy :)

Where dreams can't reach

Rejoice and happy emotions. The security from their parents watching eyes under the sun. Soft grass pummeled under their tiny hooves as they run around in the playground. The glad giggles leaving their smiling lips, thanking the sun goddess for another day of fun adventures with their friends. Innocent spirits with a whole life in front of them, filled with all of its challenges and rewards. There were dozens of them, jumping, hollering, running and most of all: laughing.

Just a few meters away from the circular spot filled with climbing frames and swings, there where parents. Mares and stallions sitting in each others warm embraces as they watched their foals enjoying what life gives you in youth. Heartwarming feelings after a meeting during one faithful day, developing into what we all call 'love', resulting in the beautiful union of the different sexes to create what life is all about: children. There would be problems, deceiving arguing, hesitating thoughts and everything you live trough in a relationship. But in the end, they take a look at the wonder they have created during their love, forgetting all anger and hatred in the sight of their beautiful foal.

Smiles and snuggles. Whispers and giggles. They had all that in their unison of two. Life had given them everything everypony had the right to live trough.

But who am I? Well, when I'm not at work, consisting of seeing more children... I'm that mare you see sitting on one of the benches the entire afternoon. You know, that lone, silent lady spending her days watching the little ones in all their happiness and joy. The forgotten female equine in her best years sitting with a frown and relaxed lips, not showing any emotions at all... but sorrow and jealousy.

I've never given birth to anything but those feelings, always stalking me with their cold breaths panting my neck till I have to switch sitting position a little. The sorrow was my first-born, he saw the light of life the day my life began its down course.

There was a stallion. He was just like me; glad, living, hopeful and most of all barely being able to hold back his wish to have a foal. I loved him so much. He was my stallion who always were there for me. We made love every day not only for the sake of the pleasure it brought, we were both so eager to see me with a growing belly in the family way.

But... it never happened. I used the pregnancy tests every so often I could to see if our dream had become true. The answers always brought a frown on our expectations. We thought there had to be something wrong. Something had to be out of order for this to happen. So we went to nurse Redheart who made us answer a mountain of questions; how our sex life was, how we ate, slept, treatments and even if we had tried any compounds to accelerate hormones and so much more. After the questioning, we were both fertility tested to see if that might have been the problem.

When the results were present, we found out the following: my husband was fully fertile.

I wasn't...

The reality was so heavy to take, so unbearable I couldn't stop crying while the nurse explained the reason. There was some congenital problems in my ovary, condemning me to a life without the ability to bear child since I went trough puberty. My stallion didn't loose hope so easily, so he simply asked the nurse if not unicorn magic could help us.

The white mare shook her head. She had learned during her education that there was no way to cure congenital disorders in the pony body, not even with magic. That statement was my personal execution...

I cried for so long. The despair impaled my mind in all the most brutal ways to send my consciousness to its eternal torture. The agony forced itself inside my hopes and dreams, killing them all to remove all happiness remaining. Those two emotions mated, loved each other in their dark ordeal and prepared for my next piece of hell.

My stallion, the young pony who I wanted to search comfort in... was suddenly gone. He had broken down in mental pain too, loosing his ability to live with the fact of only having me and no offspring from his genes. He left me, descending into the search for another mare to fulfill his dream. And at the same moment I realized he loved our unborn child more then he loved me... sorrow was born.

The years passed by, leaving me a broken spirit to live with for all eternity. The intangible child holding my hoof was always there, reminding me of the painful truth about my failed body. A prison of solitude depraved me from the will to meet somepony else. He would just leave me... just like my self-confidence did. There was no comfort for me, not even malice would be there for me.

Because wherever I looked, there was a happy couple walking past me. Either they pushed a baby carriage in front of them, or the mare was having a round belly while they walked slowly for her sake. I would never be like her, not even close. All I ever would be able to do was one day in the future to see her child everyday... both at work and after work.

Then one day, when sitting on this bench and just trying to forget my sentence of solitude, I see two recognizable fillies. A lime green unicorn with a lyre as cutie mark and a pale cream earth pony with three pieces of candies as cutie mark. Their sexual orientation walked against the stream, leading them to the path called 'fillyfooling', which I thought was just a cruel word for love.

In a try to relish in our mutual pain of not being able to have a foal from your flesh and blood, a vile smirk decorated my face. But as soon as they both sat down on a bench right next to me, my eyes widened. The unicorn leaned over to put her ear over the cream stomach, carefully asking her marefriend if she thought it was going to kick soon. When the answer in form of "not until in a couple of months" came, I grit my teeth and hasted away from the bench. I'd never hated unicorn magic so much in my entire life.

And that was when my second child was born: jealousy.

Now... several years later, I'm sitting here. I was still decades away from getting wrinkles and gray hair, thus letting me sit here on my bench, looking like any common mare you can see in your everyday. Always sitting there with my newly found happiness in watching the youth grow up day by day. There would be couples everywhere. If it wasn't a big, red stallion walking next to a smaller, yellow pegasus, it was another couple of fillies. One with rainbow streams trough her mane and the other with a handsome Stetson, walking next to each other with a little pegasus foal running between their legs, grinning with his entire heart at his two mothers.

A deep but satisfied sigh left my smiling lips, it was wonderful to see others rejoice so I could pretend it was my own. Because there would never be any for me...

"Mommy!" a little adorable voice yelled in front of me. I glanced away from my smile to look down. There I saw the absolutely cutest little earth pony filly smiling right at me, just a few hooves away with glimmering eyes sparkling over my presence. I cocked an eyebrow at her, wondering what was going on. "Mommy, mommy!" she repeated and ran with her tiny legs closer to me. She put her forelegs on my knee, begging with small jumps to come up in my lap.

I don't know what brought me to it, but a voice I didn't recognize inside my head demanded I would take up the exalted child in front of me. My forelegs extended out to grab her light brown coat, slowly and tenderly lifting her body closer to me. She giggled between my fore hooves, trying to use more words which only ended up as squeals and more happy laughter.

Suddenly, something wet fell from my eyes. Tears making their way down the fur of my cheeks as I beheld the little pony in my soft grip. I felt my stomach turning, flipping over to squeeze out emotions I hardly could remember after all these years. I closed my eyes... and slowly pressed the foal to my chest and breathed. She spread all her legs to hug me back, squeaking happily while she nuzzled her snout over where my heart was located.

My body trembled, it wouldn't obey my common sense, it wanted to live in this moment. A moment where my other children weren't there to terrorize me anymore. I had a real child now, resting in my protective grasp and never to be released again.

"Uhm... miss?" a more adult voice said to gain my attention. It was a mare, smirking over the foal's silly behavior. She... looked just like me. We had the same color on our coats and almost identical manes with just a slight color difference. However, it was easy to see on her face she wasn't me. The mare waved her hoof in an apologetic gesture. "I'm sorry. She's just a few weeks from the diaper... and you _really_ look like me, so she obviously thinks..." she explained before I cut her off.

"Yes... I understand... just... just let her... call me... mommy again..." I said before burying my muzzle in the little foals shoulder as my sobbing became reality, twitching my entire body with the foal in my grasp. The tears fell down to soak the little foal, proving my innermost misery as I finally could have a little taste of how it felt to be a mother... carefully hugging my child to show how much I loved her, even though she wasn't really mine in the first place.

The mare had an understanding look on me, frowning in sympathy over my position. She would never know how it felt to be in my horseshoes, thus she let me live a short moment more in my dreamworld were all happiness I wanted was present. The only thing infiltrating my perfect world was the mare as she mentioned my name...

"Of course, miss Cheerilee..."

END

**Author's Note:**

Okay, this tragedy took me simply two hours to write, and YES... this is my first fanfic about mlp NOT containing the slightest clopping. Hope you don't start hating me now, this was just something I really needed to get off my chest. The clopping WILL resume in my next submission.

Well, I... wouldn't expect me to write anything more "teen-friendly" for a while... a good while. After all, I took a break from writing my next chapter to one of the clopfics just to write this. What about that? ^^

Anyhow... tell me what you think about this, because I'm always curious to know what you guys think of my works. :D (P.S: I love Cheerilee, it was just fitting to let her be the protagonist)

Brohoof on ya all!


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